Plextor M5P Extreme Performance SSD Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
1,133 words · ~5 min read
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Welcome to my unboxing and first look at the PlexTor M5 Pro. This is their new
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flagship SSD drive. And uh let's let's
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start with just sort of a overview of the packaging. So this is cool. 7mm
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height for Ultras Slim Notebook. So they have improved the compatibility of their
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drive by reducing the height of it, which uh we're starting to see as a bit
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of a trend with SSD manufacturers. This is good because ultrabooks are not going
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away and we're going to continue to need slimmer and smaller storage devices that
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maintain the performance standards that enthusiasts demand. Speaking of
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maintaining performance standards, this features their exclusive firmware with
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their true speed technology. True speed technology sounds like the kind of thing
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that you would find on like, you know, a motherboard box where it's like maintain
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more performance and more better over time. And the reality of it is True
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Speed is not um is not snake oil. True
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Speed is real. True Speed is Plexto's way of saying that their firmware
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through exclusive algorithms and through
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the talent of their engineering team.
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Plexor firmware is able to better maintain the like new speed of the drive
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over time compared to their competitors. It has been tested. it has been
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validated by third-party sources and it's very very impressive. So, Plexto is
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sort of like um here how do we how do we compare them? They're sort of like Intel
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in that they are the company that is doing the firmware. They're doing the
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validation of their drive. They're doing the manufacturer of their drive, but
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they're not actually the designer and manufacturer of the hardware chip
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controller that goes on it. So, Plexto's M5 Pro is actually using a brand new
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controller. Here, we'll start opening it up here. This is Marvel's newest, latest
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controller. So, you know Marvel controllers from high performance drives
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in the past, such as Plexar's own drives or Crucial Drives. However, Plexor is
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the first one with the 8855987 controller. And I know that's
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not a sexy name, but what Marll seems
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to well seems to be capable of doing is delivering wicked controllers. And what
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we know that Plexor is capable of doing is delivering wicked firmwares. So I'm
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very excited to see how this drive performs once we actually get it fired
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up. It's using Toggle Nan, which again is the fastest, most premium NAND, which
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stands to reason because this is not a cheap inexpensive drive. It's got 512
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megs of cache. That is DDR3 1333 cache,
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which is one of the fastest caches out there. So it is well, it's
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state-of-the-art. This new controller from Marvel is actually technically SATA
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3.1. So even though that looks like a standard SATA, SATA 2, SATA 3 uh data
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and power connector, it actually supports a couple of new things,
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including most importantly the ability to prioritize trim commands. So it not
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only supports trim, but it can wait to do trim in order to finish some
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outstanding IO's and then execute the trim command in order to improve
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efficiency. as long as you have a compatible controller on the other side
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of the of the data connection. So, this
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drive I can tell you guys right now is pretty much at the top in terms of the
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sequential read and write performance. However, there's a lot more to it
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necessarily than that when it comes to drive performance. So, you can see
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what's their specs. So, they're saying up to 540 megs per second reads and up
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to 450 megs per second right. So those reads are the fastest out there and the
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rights lag just a little bit behind the vertex 4. Random read and random write
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IOPS again are pretty much class leading. So I'm expecting very very good
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performance from this drive. Their mean time between failure is
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2,400,000 hours. So remember guys, meanantime between failure uses an
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industry standard method to determine what the average time for failure for. I
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think they have to use something like uh however many hundreds of drives at a
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time. and they run them all through a standardized test and see how many of
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them fail and after how long to determine how long it would take for the
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drives to fail on average. Let's just see if see if they have anything else to
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say for themselves besides that. So, enterprise standard high temperature
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burn-in process. Uh Plex instant restore technology maintains SSD performance.
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Oh, right. So, you can restore it to a like new state um using their tools very
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very easily. I did forget to mention that. Low power consumption, disc
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cloning and backup utility included. Neat. Okay. So, yeah, let's have a look at what's included in the box. So, we've
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got a 2 and 1/2 in to 3 and 1/2 in adapter. All the mounting screws you
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need, although if you're installing it in a notebook, which you can cuz it's slim, um it'll you'll it'll probably
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come with the mounting adapters that you need. A Ziploc baggie
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includes Oh, neat. Oh, neat. Look at
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that. Comes with SSD performance analyzer. Um I mean, I guess they're not
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shy about their performance because they're they're Plexar. I mean, I had a
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meeting with them and they were like, "Yeah, yeah, we we're pretty much the
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best when it comes to quality and performance." Um, I I actually didn't
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even know this at the time, but they're one of the top manufacturers in the
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world. So, a lot of the drives you buy with other brand names on them uh may
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actually be manufactured by Plexor, so bear that in mind. I included software
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Echo, Backup Now Easy, and bonus trials. Ninja software trial, Shadow software
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trial, MediaMaker software trial. Okay, interesting. Quick installation guide,
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limited warranty. Uh, this is a 5-year warranty product, so they are standing
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behind it there. Sorry, I did forget to mention that on the front. Um, so that
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is right up there with competing products like the O Intel 520 series and
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the OCZ Vertex 4. So there you have it. That's the unboxing of the PlexTor M5P.
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This is the true successor to the M3P using a last generation controller and
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this is a very exciting time for SSD enthusiasts. Don't forget to subscribe
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to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews, and other computer videos.